The Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, has held that restaurants in Uttar Pradesh cannot provide hookah service even in Designated Smoking Areas, because the amended Rule 4(3) of the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008 prohibits any service in a smoking area, and that a non-smoker’s right to clean air under Article 21 cannot be abridged by the commercial interest of an establishment.
Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, has held that hookah bars cannot operate in Uttar Pradesh and that hookah service cannot be provided even in Designated Smoking Areas, dismissing a batch of more than 80 writ petitions by restaurants, cafes and lounges, led by M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd., that sought a declaration that their food-service licences permit them to run a hookah facility and asked for police interference to be stopped [M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. State of U.P. and Others].
A Bench of Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary delivered the common judgment on September 29, 2026 in Writ-C No. 10713 of 2023 and the connected petitions, after reserving it on August 18, 2026. The judgment was authored by Justice Saraf, and Justice Chaudhary agreed. It holds that the operation of hookah bars and the rendering of hookah services by restaurants in the State is a “flagrant violation” of Rule 4(3) of the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008, as amended in 2017, and is contrary to the scheme and object of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA).
The background
The leading petitioner, M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd., holds a food service restaurant licence under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 for a franchised cafe in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow. During the COVID-19 lockdown, in Suo Motu PIL No. 716 of 2020, the High Court directed on August 27, 2020 that bars, restaurants and cafes in the State not be permitted to serve hookah until further orders because of the high transmission of the virus, and the Chief Secretary banned hookah bars on September 5, 2020. On February 21, 2023, without going into the merits, the Court noted that running hookah bars is regulated under the Food Safety Act and let individual interveners apply to the statutory authority for grant or renewal of licences.
On March 29, 2023, the Commissioner, Food Safety and Drug Administration, directed that licence applications from establishments operating hookah bars be decided on their compliance with the amended Rules of May 23, 2017, failing which licences could be cancelled or suspended. The police then conducted a raid, and on May 15, 2023 the Additional Commissioner of Police passed a preventive order under Section 133 of the CrPC, recording that hookah bars were operating without licence or permission, that hookah smoking outside the petitioner’s cafe was causing a public nuisance, and that hookah was being served to minors. The petitioners said this stopped them from running their business and claimed a violation of Article 19(1)(g). The police findings were recorded in that order, and the petitioners’ case was that they had complied with the law.
The question before the Court
The issue was not whether smoking tobacco through a hookah, in isolation, is prohibited. The question was whether restaurants and similar establishments can provide hookah as a service in a Designated Smoking Area. The Court answered in the negative.
It observed that the general rule under COTPA is a prohibition of smoking in public places, and that a Designated Smoking Area is an exception to that rule, to be read strictly and narrowly so as to advance the public health object of the Act. While such an area permits smoking, it does not permit a restaurant to provide hookah service, because the amended Rule 4(3) prohibits any service in a smoking area.
The 2017 amendment and Narinder S. Chadha
The Court relied heavily on the 2017 amendment to Rule 4(3). Before it, the rule provided that a smoking area was to be used only for smoking and that no other service would be allowed. In Narinder S. Chadha v. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the Supreme Court held that smoking through a hookah is smoking within the meaning of COTPA, and that the words “no other services” referred to services other than the provision of a hookah, so that hookah smoking was permissible under the rule as it then stood.
The Central Government later substituted Rule 4(3), which now says, “No service shall be allowed in any smoking area or space provided for smoking.” The High Court held that the amendment, by removing the word “other”, overrode the interpretation in Narinder S. Chadha, and that it is an absolute and unqualified prohibition on all services in a Designated Smoking Area, covering the service of food, beverages, tobacco products, herbal products and hookah.
What the petitioners argued
The petitioners’ counsel argued that the 2020 ban was a temporary COVID-19 measure and not a permanent change in law, that the State’s own circular of March 29, 2023 recognised hookah operations as capable of regulation by compliance, and that the Food Safety Department has no jurisdiction to regulate or license smoking, since the Food Safety Act deals with food and tobacco falls under COTPA. They also argued that hookah service could be run on a self-service or rental model, and that the Article 19(1)(g) right to trade was being violated.
Clean air and the right to trade
On the constitutional question, the Bench held that the right of a non-smoker to breathe clean air in a public place is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, and that the right to trade under Article 19(1)(g) must yield to it, and to the State’s duty to improve public health under Article 47. The Court also held that the power to regulate an activity under COTPA includes the power to prohibit it where the object of the regulation demands it.
Self-service and rental arguments rejected
The Court held that the self-service model the petitioners proposed is not viable, because preparing and operating a hookah involves service that needs expertise and cannot be done by untrained patrons. It also held that providing hookah is not a rental like renting a car without a driver. In a car rental, the renter has possession and control and can go anywhere, whereas a customer given a prepared hookah must use it in the Designated Smoking Area, so the provision of the apparatus is a service and not a rental.
Licensing and police powers
The Court accepted the petitioners’ contention on one point. It held that the Food Safety Department and the Municipal Corporation lack jurisdiction to issue licences for regulating hookah bars in the State.
It rejected the challenge to police enforcement, holding that Sections 12, 13 and 15 of COTPA empower police authorities to ensure compliance with Sections 4 and 6, including the power to search, seize, confiscate and impose penalties on establishments that disobey.
The order and the Court’s epilogue
All the writ petitions were dismissed, and the Registry was directed to send a copy of the judgment to the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, for information and necessary compliance.
In an epilogue, the Bench noted that the WHO’s 2019 report classifies India’s smoke-free policy as merely moderate, that States such as Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka have amended COTPA to ban hookah bars and raise punishments, and that India ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2004. The Court recorded that a single hour-long hookah session involves an estimated 200 puffs and is equivalent in harm to smoking 100 cigarettes, called it a myth that hookah is less harmful than cigarettes, and said hookah needs a statutory health warning like cigarette packs. It expected Uttar Pradesh to rise to the occasion and consider a notification imposing stringent punishment for serving hookah in Designated Smoking Areas. The judgment closes with a personal note from Justice Saraf on his own experience of smoking, written to caution young readers.
Why it matters
The ruling turns on a change in the wording of a rule and on how the Court read the earlier Supreme Court decision in that light. It means that, in Uttar Pradesh, a Designated Smoking Area does not by itself give a restaurant a lawful basis to offer hookah, that the police can enforce COTPA against such service, and that the Food Safety Department and the Municipal Corporation cannot license it.
The holding concerns the amended Rule 4(3) and the service of hookah in Designated Smoking Areas, as argued in these petitions. Other High Courts have taken their own views on hookah under COTPA, and the expectation that the State consider a stricter notification is an observation and not a direction.
Case Title: M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. State of U.P. and Others [Writ-C No. 10713 of 2023, with connected petitions]
Bench: Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench
Date of Judgment: September 29, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Vatsala Singh, Nitesh Kumar Mishra and Shobhit Mohan Shukla appeared for the leading petitioner, Advocate Harshit Singh made the submissions for the petitioners in the connected petitions, and the Chief Standing Counsel and Advocate Akhilesh Kumar Srivastava appeared for the respondents, among many other counsel.